HENDRICKSON, WAYNE A., Ph.D. University Professor and the Violin Family Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics Macromolecular structure with an aim toward in-depth understanding of biological activity. Office: Black Building | 2nd floor | Room 203 Telephone: 212.305-3456 Fax: 212-305-7379 Email: wayne@convex.hhmi.columbia.edu

Current Research

Wayne A. Hendrickson is a University Professor at Columbia University and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at River Falls and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University based on work with Warner Love. His postdoctoral research was with Jerome Karle at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). He remained at NRL as a Research Biophysicist until 1984 when he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia.

Research in Dr. Hendrickson's laboratory focuses on the structure and function of biological molecules. He and his colleagues use x-ray crystallography to study molecular properties in atomic detail. By analyzing x-ray beams diffracted from crystals, they are able to reconstruct images of crystallized molecules. Their advances in diffraction methods (notably, stereochemically restrained refinement, the multiwavelength-anomalous-diffraction (MAD) method, selenomethionyl proteins, and synchrotron instrumentation) have been instrumental in the emergence of structural biology as a major force in modern biology and molecular medicine. They use this technology themselves in investigations on membrane receptors and cellular signaling, on viral proteins and HIV infection, and on molecular chaperones and protein folding.

Dr. Hendrickson has published numerous research articles and related reviews. He serves on advisory bodies for various scientific organizations. He is a founding editor of Current Opinion in Structural Biology and of Structure, and he is a founder of SGX Pharmaceuticals. His honors include the Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Gairdner International Award, and the Harvey Prize of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Selected Publications

J. Cheung and W.A. Hendrickson, Structural Analysis of Ligand Stimulation of the Sensor Histidine Kinase NarX. Structure. In press.

W.A. Hendrickson and Q. Liu, Exchange We Can Believe in. Structure 16, 1153-1158 (2008).

J. Cheung and W.A. Hendrickson, Crystal Structures of C4-Dicarboxylate Ligand Complexes with Sensor Domains of Histidine Kinases DcuS and DctB. J. Biol. Chem. 283, 30256-30265 (2008).

H. Xie, D. Ng, S.N. Savinov, B. Dey, P.D. Kwong, R. Wyatt, A.B. Smith III and W.A. Hendrickson, Structure-Activity Relationships in the Binding of Chemically Derivatized CD4 to gp120 from Human Immunodeficiency Virus. J. Med. Chem. 50, 4898-4908 (2007).

F. Mancia, S. Brenner-Morton, R Siegel, Z. Assur, Y. Sun, I. Schieren, M. Mendelsohn, R. Axel and W.A. Hendrickson, Production and Characterization of Monoclonal Antibodies Sensitive to Conformation in the 5HT2c Serotonin Receptor. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 4303-4308 (2007).

E. Martinez-Hackert, N. Anikeeva, S.A. Kalams, B.D. Walker, W.A. Hendrickson and Y. Sykulev, Structural Basis for Degenerate Recognition of HIV Peptide Variants by Cytotoxic Lymphocytes.  J. Biol. Chem. 281, 20205-20212 (2006).

T. Zhou, D.H. Hamer, W.A. Hendrickson, Q.J. Sattentau and P.D. Kwong, Interfacial Metal and Antibody Recognition.  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 14575-14580 (2005).

R.A. Kovall and W.A. Hendrickson, Crystal Structure of the Nuclear Effector of Notch Signaling, CSL bound to DNA. EMBO J. 23, 3441-3451 (2004).

F. Mancia, S.D. Patel, M.W. Rajala, P.E. Scherer, A. Nemes, I. Schieren, W.A. Hendrickson and L. Shapiro, Optimization of Protein Production in Mammalian Cells with a Coexpressed Fluorescent Marker.  Structure 12, 1355-1360 (2004).

P.D. Kwong, M.L. Doyle, D.J. Casper, C. Cicala, S.A. Leavitt, S. Majeed, T.D. Steenbeke, M. Venturi, I. Chaiken, M. Fung, H. Katinger, P.W.I.H. Parren, J. Robinson, D. Van Ryk, L. Wang, D.R. Burton, E. Friere, R. Wyatt, J. Sodroski, W.A. Hendrickson and J. Arthos, HIV-1 Evades Neurtralization through Entropic Masking of Receptor-binding Sites. Nature 420, 678-682 (2002).

M.E. Gottesman and W.A. Hendrickson, Protein Folding and Unfolding by E. coli Chaperones and Chaperonins.  Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 3, 197-202 (2000).

W. Zhang, G. Canziani, C. Plugariu, R. Wyatt, J. Sodroski, R. Sweet, P. Kwong, W. Hendrickson and I. Chaiken, Conformational Changes of gp120 in Epitopes near the CCR5 Binding Site Are Induced by CD4 and a CD4 Miniprotein Mimetic.  Biochemistry 38, 9405-9416 (1999).

Peat, T.S., Frank, E.G., McDonald, J.P., Levine, A.S., Woodgate, R. and Hendrickson, W.A. (1996) Structure of the UmuD' protein and its regulation in response to DNA damage. Nature 380, 727-730.

Fremont, D.H., Hendrickson, W.A., Marrack, P. and Kappler, J. (1996) Structures of an MHC class II molecular with covalently bound single peptides. Science 272, 1001-1004.

Lima, C.D., Klein, M.G., Weinstein, I.B. and Hendrickson, W.A. (1996) Three-dimensional structure of human protein kinase C interacting protein 1, a member of the HIT family of proteins. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA 93, 5357-5362.

Zhu, X., Zhao, X., Burkholder, W.F., Gragerov, A., Ogata, C., Gottesman, M.E. and Hendrickson W.A. (1996) Structural analysis of substrate binding by the molecular chaperone DnaK. Science 272, 1605-1614.

Shapiro, L., Doyle, J.P., Hensley, P., Colman, D.R. and Hendrickson, W.A. (1996) Crystal structure of the extracellular domain from Po, the major structural protein of peripheral nerve myelin. Neuron 17, 435-449.

Yamaguchi, H. and Hendrickson W.A. (1996) Structural basis for activation of the lymphocyte kinase Lck upon tyrosine phosphorylation. Nature 384, 484-489.